Final
Words post on 10/19
Month 17 Day 30
1342 Hours
Captain Jane Burke
Jane entered the transpod room and
glanced around. Smitty stood at the controls. Normally, he'd be overseeing the
transfer of cargo; he must have Wilson doing that. Bugalu and MacGregor were
standing nearby. No surprise there. Of course they'd want to say good-bye. 2
pods waited with their doors open… and there was no sign of the redhead. “I
don’t think she gets to change her mind, at this point,” Jane stated. “She’s
still pregnant, isn’t she?” She asked Drake.
“Yes, and don’t even joke about it being
otherwise,” he responded.
He's right. It was a heartless thing to
say. “No, that wouldn’t be a joking matter,” Jane agreed. But where is she? Is
she having difficulty packing?
The door opened and MacDowell entered,
her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She looked different out of uniform,
wearing low shoes, pants and a long-sleeved turtleneck. She looked young, small
and vulnerable, despite the duffle bag she so easily carried. She seemed
surprised to see her captain there. “Captain.” She actually saluted, despite
not being in uniform.
“You seem to have forgotten something,
lieutenant,” Jane told her with a gentle smile. “Which of these 3 men have you
decided to marry? As soon as you name him, I’ll perform the ceremony, and the
other 2 can act as witnesses.”
“She decided to marry me,” Smitty
stated. “We’ve made plans.”
“I don’t remember receiving a transfer
request for you, Smitty.” Actually, I
haven’t gotten a request for any of them. Have her plans somehow hit a
stumbling block? Why didn’t anybody tell me about it? “MacDowell?” She
asked, and everybody turned to look at her.
The redhead developed red flags on her
cheeks, and then her face went white as tears started down her face. “None of
them,” she answered curtly, and moved forward, towards the transpods.
Smitty’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Colleen!”
MacDowell whirled to face him, pain
obvious on her face, her tears flowing even faster. “I thought you understood!
I have to go to Gaelund! When I join
you in a year, then I’ll marry you. But I can’t do it before that. If my family
discovers who got me pregnant, they’ll declare war! I don’t even plan to tell
them I’m engaged, for the same reason. Which reminds me, don’t try to contact
me, not any of you." She glanced at MacGregor and Bugalu to include them.
"If they find I’m communicating with men—I don’t even want to think about
it! I’ll send messages through Abdulla and Yellow Dog. Once I’ve determined
it’s safe, then we can exchange occasional messages.”
Smitty was obviously in as much pain as
she was. “Then, how do I tell you where to meet me? How do we discuss the
possibilities I discover? How do we… keep our love alive?”
Her duffel bag hit the floor with a
muffled thud, and she was in his embrace, kissing him. After a moment, she
ended the kiss, but still clung to him. “Okay. We'll have to risk it. Tell your
communications crew that I will send messages to you addressed to Joe George. I
know there’s nobody aboard with that name. If there is, I've never met them,
which would be highly unlikely. In that case, have Abdulla send me another name
to use. When you get a message from me, and it sounds like garbage, put it
through the Yukosk translator. Nobody on Gaelund will know a word of Yukosk, so
that should be safe for me to use. Okay? And never forget that I love you.”
“And I love you,” he returned, his voice
gravelly with emotion. “Forever and ever. But you have to marry me, now, before
you go to Gaelund. That way, the Fleet will send half my paycheck to you, as my
spouse who's living separately. I'm afraid your pension won't be nearly enough
to support you.”
She gave him a watery smile and caressed
his cheek. "Oh, that's sweet." She sniffed and went on. "But
I've got some vacation time and sick leave saved up. I'm sure all that will get
me through."
She's
wrong. It won't be enough, and soon there'll be 2 of them. I thought they were
discussing all the possibilities? But they somehow didn't discuss the finances
of living separately? With the financial demands of taking care of a baby as
well? What have they been talking about?
"It's my responsibility to see that
you and the child have everything you need," Smitty argued. "Just a
2-minute ceremony and it'll be done."
She reached up and placed a finger over
his mouth. "I can't do that, and I told you why." She gave him
another long kiss.
Eventually, a buzz sounded from the
control board, and the couple broke their embrace. Looking bewildered, Smitty
needed a moment to identify the source of the noise. He cleared his throat.
“The station’s getting impatient for you to debark,” he told the redhead.
Moisture gleamed in his eyes.
He reluctantly let her move away from
him. Turning, she pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket and turned to Jane.
“Captain, this is my letter of resignation.”
Jane was having her own emotional
reaction, which she was trying hard to hide as she took the letter. “I wish we
could have found a better solution for you than to send you back to Gaelund for
a year.”
“I’ll make it work,” MacDowell stated
huskily, and coughed. “I’m in a lot better position now than I was when I left
at 17.” She turned and gave MacGregor a hug. “I’ll miss you, Uncle MacG. You’ve
taught me so much.”
“I insist you put me in contact with
your obstetrician,” he answered. “So I can keep track of you and the baby.”
“I will,” she promised, and transferred
her hug to Bugalu. “My best brother ever.”
“I expect to send you messages,” he told
her. “What fake name do you want me to use?”
Initially startled, she answered, “Oh,
Bugalu is fine. If anybody asks, I’ll just tell them you’re from Africa.
They’ll never know Bugalu isn’t a woman’s name.”
“Good.” The buzzer sounded again, and he
released her. “You’d better go.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged, her voice
strained. She retrieved her duffel bag and placed it in one of the transpods,
then stepped into the second and waved good-bye. "It's only a year, Smit.
Not even a Gaelund year." Tears streamed down her face as she stared at
Smitty while the pods sealed themselves and started on their journey to the
station.
I’ll
still be losing Smitty, but that’s put off for a year. I had my misgivings
about that one when
she arrived, but she settled in and became an excellent member of the crew.
Takor is grateful for his yeoman, Yellow
Dog, who has also fit into the crew. The only one that hasn’t is that nurse that arrived with them, and I don't
understand why she's still with us. “Duck, with me,” she instructed, and
glanced at the other 2 men. “You 2 take the rest of the day off.” She turned
and left, trusting her Chief Medical Officer to follow.
The End
